An Estonian Summer Holiday

We woke up from our (not so scenic) free camp at a service station on Sunday the 31st of July and headed for the beach town of Pärnu – apparently the place to be for holidaying Estonians. – to catch some sunshine (and also a few showers but we can’t have it all)

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We parked the van up at a free car park recommended on campercontact.com just by the river (GPS N58.38778 E24.49528) and left it there for the afternoon, we actually moved to a carpark nearer the road for the night as there were quite a few people rummaging in bins etc, in the original carpark and while we didn’t feel too unsafe always better safe than sorry.

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Pärnu wasn’t an exceptional city by any means but I can see why people would come here for their summer jollies. The beach running parallel to the city is really, really nice – soft white sand, shallow warm water (not quite as clear as the water in Scandinavia but it was just a touch warmer) and loads of changing cubicles and kids play areas. The city itself is small enough to walk around easily, which we were doing when we got caught in a ridiculous downpour and had to shelter in a pizza restaurant with some cups of tea for half an hour, and there are plenty of restaurants and cafes to choose from – we struggled to find traditional Estonian food but we still treated ourselves to a night out at an Irish pub, we love Estonian prices! We managed two main courses, 2 glasses of (very yummy) wine and two pints of Estonian beer for the grand total of about €22 – just a little bit cheaper than our last meal out in Norway. Before we went and got tucked up in the caddy we went for a stroll along the quayside which was just down from our camping spot – this walk takes you past the Yacht Club (which has free wifi with great range if you need it) and seems to be a popular strolling spot. We spotted a camper and caravan further down so went for a nosey and discovered three extremely worse for wear people trying to do something (?!) fairly acrobatic with a boat trailer and a pulley so we quietly left them too it and went to bed.

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Overall we liked Pärnu, it had a small town feel which was nice because as you may have picked up from previous posts, we’re not exactly city folk. We never felt unsafe and it had a real festive, holiday feel to it. The centre of the city is like a little old town with pastel coloured buildings and little alleyways while the outskirts have a few big shopping centres and supermarkets.

We were planning on hanging around a bit longer and having a proper beach day at Pärnu but unfortunately when we woke up on Monday the clouds had made an appearance so no sun worshipping for us – instead, we headed for yet another border. Latvia – here we come!

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